<i>Shaheen Bagh</i> (2021): Gender, Affects, and Ita Mehrotra’s Graphic Narrative of Protest

Abstract

Ita Mehrotra’s journalistic memoir, <i>Shaheen Bagh: A Graphic Recollection</i> (2021), through the graphic narrative medium, facilitates a reading of the Shaheen Bagh protests in India, particularly those in Delhi, as pivoting on affective strategies. This article argues how the women of Shaheen Bagh in Delhi mobilised affects primarily through the following activities – sharing food, singing songs and the display of artwork. The article explores: What role does the graphic narrative genre of Mehrotra’s book play in the representation of affective strategies used in the Shaheen Bagh protests? And since Shaheen Bagh was considered remarkable because the organisers were Muslim women (Verde and Kumar, 2020, n. p.), how does the study of gender and ethnicity in relation to affective strategies contribute to this proposed reading? This article is situated within the intersecting discourses of South Asian Feminisms, Contemporary South Asian literature, and Affect Theory.